News

FORT DAVIS — For the past year, McDonald Observatory has celebrated its 75th anniversary via events around the state. Now that those events have concluded, the arrival of a piece of the observatory’s history puts a cap on the anniversary year.

The Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) Organization is partnering with The University of Texas at Austin McDonald Observatory to present a new teacher workshop curriculum that will educate teachers about how the GMT, the world’s largest telescope, will dramatically advance the field of astronomy when it begins operations in 2020.

FORT DAVIS — McDonald Observatory announced the winners of its art contest for school kids in Jeff Davis, Presidio, and Brewster counties at its Open House on April 26. The contest, part the observatory’s year-long celebration of its 75th anniversary, received 127 entries in two categories (junior high-high school and elementary school). They were judged on creativity and representation of the spirit of the anniversary celebration.

The University of Texas System Board of Regents Friday authorized UT Austin to spend $50 million to participate in building the Giant Magellan Telescope project, which will be the world’s largest telescope when it’s completed in 2020. The project will give students, researchers and faculty the opportunity to make groundbreaking discoveries in astronomy.

AUSTIN — The upcoming world’s largest telescope has passed two critical milestones, according to founding partner The University of Texas at Austin. The Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) has passed major reviews on its design and cost estimates and is ready to proceed to construction.

Astronomer Taft Armandroff has been appointed the new director of The University of Texas at Austin’s McDonald Observatory in Fort Davis, Texas.

Armandroff, who is currently director of the W.M. Keck Observatory in Mauna Kea, Hawai’i, will join the university in June 2014.

He succeeds David Lambert, who, as the observatory’s third director, propelled the observatory to national prominence. Lambert will resume his position as a full-time faculty member in the Department of Astronomy.

A yearlong celebration is underway to celebrate the 75th anniversary of The University of Texas at Austin’s McDonald Observatory. Located in West Texas near Fort Davis, the observatory was dedicated May 5, 1939, and has supported some of the most important astronomical discoveries of recent decades about everything from extrasolar planets to exotic stars to black holes.

Thanks to data detected with the ALMA radio telescope, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, University of Texas at Austin astronomers and others were able to detect a star in formation — a protostar — that appears to be one of the brightest and massive found in our galaxy.